Westside Digest

Beverly Hills

Almost one-third of the students in the Beverly Hills Unified School District has a primary language other than English, according to the district's annual survey.

Al JeKenta, the coordinator of the district's program in English as a second language, told the Board of Education that students whose primary language is not English account for 29.3% of the district population, rising steadily from 17.2% in 1979. Twenty-one different languages are represented among the students in Beverly Hills schools. Farsi (Persian) ranks first among students from non-English speaking households. Spanish is second and Hebrew is third.